The dates and casting for the Nov/Dec '08 Japan Tour are up. The Japan Tour opens with Somova/Schklyarov's Swan Lake in Yokohama. Also tellingly, it is the Somova/Sarafanov casting that gets the opening Humpbacked Horse -- and the one night conducted by Gergiev, with more expensive tickets -- in Tokyo. Terioshkina/Lobukhin will have the 2nd and final Humpbacked Horse with another conductor. The entire tour ends with two all-star galas in Tokyo. Full tour schedule & casting here, courtesy of Japan Arts website:

http://www.japanarts.co.jp/html/2009/balle...sky/english.htm

p.s. - Washington, DC, ballet-goers will want to pay close attention to the Tokyo Sleeping Beauty castings, as this provides a big clue as to who will be dancing the leads in that ballet at the Kennedy Center one month later.

As a Londoner I'd like to know why Japan is deemed suitable for performances of Humpbacked Horse whereas the UK is not.

I will try to report on some of the performances. and the casting of Sleeping Beauty.

As for The Little Humpbuck Horse, this might be regarded an adventurous programming, but the Fokine Programme was changed into an All Star Gala, what I hear is that the impresario did not expect good ticket sales from Fokine.

Perhaps The Little Humpbuck Horse was programmed because Ratmansky's The Bright Stream had a very high critical success in Japan, and also this time Valery Gergiyev is conducting on the first night.　（He will be on a Japan tour with the Marrinsky Orchestra, but the Mariinsky Orchestra only performs with The Little Humpbuck Horse) Gergiev tickets sells very well in Japan.

Mashinka, wasn't the Hochhauser London season announced in late February or early March? That was prior to the premiere of the ballet in St. Petersburg. I know for a fact that the Japanese impresarios made the decision to include LHH in the Japan tour AFTER having viewed the ballet. Even so, they scheduled it for only two performances, the smallest number of performances for a full-length ballet on that tour. In today's economy, one cannot stick one's neck out too far.

p.s. after having read Naomikage's post - I would not be surprised that the Fokines were turned into the more 19th-C classical All-Star Galas as a further counter-balance to possible lower sales for Little Humpbacked Horse.